Jars of baby feet and fetal remains.

Bloodstained walls, sheets and women lying half life­less in chairs.

Babies born, cry­ing with life, then scis­sors to their necks, sev­er­ing their spinal cords. Some die imme­di­ately. For oth­ers it is slower, and they twitch about. A woman, strapped to a bed, cries out that she wants to keep her baby. But a mon­ster calls her the baby, and she is out­num­bered by staff who proceed.

She wakes up groggy but knows her baby is no longer with her. She weeps and asks to hold her child. But no one answers. They all ignore her.

Does this sound like some­thing out of a hor­ror movie?

It’s not. It’s real. It is the story of Kermit Gosnell and his abor­tion clinic in Philadelphia, Pa. on 3801 Lancaster Avenue. The doc­u­men­tary “3801 Lancaster” reveals the truth behind this nightmare.

For those of you not famil­iar with this story, Gosnell’s clinic was up and run­ning for many years. In fact, the last time a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the state depart­ment of health had inspected the clinic was 1993.

Gosnell pri­mar­ily per­formed late term abor­tions, in which the fetus is often viable. Various atroc­i­ties took place at Gosnell’s far below par facil­ity, includ­ing one woman suf­fer­ing a per­fo­rated uterus in 1996, another dying after an abor­tion in 2002, and another dead in 2009. One died because a gen­eral office worker started her anes­the­sia, and she suf­fered a lethal over­dose. The health depart­ment was noti­fied of all these incidents,

Not once did they investigate.

In addi­tion to these heinous crimes, seven infants expe­ri­enced Gosnell’s hor­rific snip­ping pro­ce­dure, live babies murdered.

As I type I feel my stom­ach churn, but I try to keep my words lucid and com­posed. I don’t know what infu­ri­ates me the most: The obscen­i­ties that occurred at this ter­ri­ble excuse for a med­ical facil­ity by this man and the irre­spon­si­ble work­ers below him, the utter neg­li­gence of those who are sup­posed to pro­tect our health and com­mu­ni­ties from these kinds of atroc­i­ties, or the fact that it takes an event like this for peo­ple to real­ize the hor­ror of abor­tion, for moth­ers and babies. There are those who will call this case mur­der­ous, but still jus­tify the killing of a human baby as long as it’s not viable. We demand rights for diverse sex­u­al­i­ties and gen­ders and eth­nic­i­ties and races and classes. Yet we fail to give the most basic right of life to the inno­cent who can­not speak up for themselves.

One woman had eight abor­tions by Gosnell in 14 years, and when she returned after her first, one of the work­ers explained how per­fectly nor­mal abor­tion is. For every abor­tion after, she viewed it as a form of birth con­trol. Reflecting in the doc­u­men­tary, she says she doesn’t know what she was think­ing, as she weeps bitterly.

Ferris women, this is you. You are those at risk. If this heart­break­ing story doesn’t change your views of abor­tion for the hor­ren­dous act that it is (and as polar as the issue of abor­tion is, I doubt it will), at least become an advo­cate for your health and the health of oth­ers by speak­ing up in the face of med­ical atroc­i­ties and become a pro­po­nent for qual­ity care. Those that are pro-choice argue the impor­tance of this plat­form on giv­ing women con­trol. Control of their lives and their bod­ies. But women, when you let your body into the hands of a mon­ster like Gosnell, or any­one who will take that life from you or put your life at risk, you relin­quish control.

My col­leagues, my fel­low stu­dents who have under­gone abortions—I don’t con­demn you. I can’t imag­ine the emo­tional toil, the pain and the pres­sure of know­ing the respon­si­bil­ity of a child—it’s impact on your hopes and dreams or the pain of car­ry­ing the child of rape. I can’t think of any­one who likes abor­tion. But don’t let peo­ple desen­si­tize you to it. Using pro­tec­tion if sex is your choice or mak­ing the choice with your body to sus­tain a life if you do become preg­nant is giv­ing you more power and con­trol than you could ever have in the hands of some­one who will take that new life away.

One point made in the doc­u­men­tary addressed the preva­lence of abor­tion clin­ics in inner-cities, African American com­mu­ni­ties, and minor­ity com­mu­ni­ties, tar­get­ing those already oppressed. They offer their ser­vices as if they are the only choice. They aren’t. You have options. The road won’t be easy choos­ing life, but nei­ther will choos­ing abor­tion. Make the choice that saves lives and pro­motes health for all.

“Con los terroristas!”

Yes, we all know what that means. Well, it actu­ally means “with the ter­ror­ists” if you know any Spanish. But to the rest of the world, it marks the begin­ning of American pro­ducer Bauer’s new hit song and the “new” dance craze/Internet meme.

It begins with a masked char­ac­ter oddly mov­ing his limbs or thrust­ing, while all around him peo­ple seem to be car­ry­ing on with busi­ness as usual. Twenty sec­onds later, the orig­i­na­tor is joined by a mob of peo­ple going crazy, “danc­ing” with odd objects and cos­tumes and doing any obnox­ious move­ments you can think of. Even Ferris, with Brutus as the star, has joined in on this “Harlem Shake.” (more…)

You really like some­one. Then you date them. Now you’re in love. Then you’re madly in love. You get attached. Then you break up. So what’s the next log­i­cal thing to do? Obviously keep sleep­ing with them.

Most of us know this as friends with ben­e­fits, hereon referred to as FWB. With Valentine’s Day around the cor­ner, peo­ple will be look­ing for love—or lust—in all the wrong places.

Granted, I know the col­lege scene is all about hook-ups. You go to a party, meet a hand­some guy and say “why not.” Though I’m not a pro­po­nent of this cul­ture either, that’s not what I’m talk­ing about. (more…)

Imagine you’re the mother of a beau­ti­ful 18-month-old girl. You entrust her to the care of a world renowned hos­pi­tal and assume she is in good hands. Her wounds heal, and you think she is soon to be home. Instead, she dies two days later from com­pletely pre­ventable mistakes.

This is the story of Josie King. Josie entered John Hopkins hos­pi­tal with severe first and sec­ond degree burns from crawl­ing into a hot bath, but was recov­er­ing nicely.

After Josie’s cen­tral line was taken out, she began to show severe signs of thirst, like scream­ing when­ever she saw some­thing to drink and suck­ing very hard on a wash­cloth when receiv­ing a bath. Her mother knew things weren’t right, but staff dis­missed her con­cerns and Josie’s orders were that she was not allowed to drink. Then, Josie was over­dosed on nar­cotics, but was given a rever­sal agent and pulled through. The doc­tor gave ver­bal orders to dis­con­tinue nar­cotics, and she was finally allowed some­thing to drink. After these changes were made, her con­di­tion began to improve. (more…)

Don’t have a lot going on in your life? You’re prob­a­bly not that important.

That is the mind­set of America. We thrive on busy­ness. We live in a soci­ety which makes people’s value directly pro­por­tional to how many things they have going on and how many hours they slave away at school, work or out­side commitments.

If you’re tak­ing 18 credit hours, are pres­i­dent of two reg­is­tered stu­dent orga­ni­za­tions and on the board of three oth­ers, go home to work every other week­end, vol­un­teer on the other week­ends, are engulfed by three very exten­sive school projects and still find time to be the num­ber one con­fi­dant for all your friends, you’re prob­a­bly pretty impor­tant. Your life means some­thing. (more…)

Marriage has lost its meaning.

I recently saw an e-card on Pinterest (laugh if you want, but you know you do it too) of an old cou­ple walk­ing hand in hand. The cap­tion spoke vol­umes to me:

“How did we man­age to stay together for 65 years? We were born in a time when if some­thing was bro­ken we would fix it, not throw it away.” (more…)

Imagine your first day of kinder­garten. But you’re not in a bright, col­or­ful room full of posters with the alpha­bet, num­bers, toys, pic­ture books and 15 other kids your age. There are no sing along songs. No group activ­i­ties. No arts and crafts. No recess. No col­or­ing or learn­ing to draw or read with your peers.

Instead, you sit in a room by your­self and stare at a com­puter. And that’s where you will stay for the rest of your day. And every day after, until you call your­self a “high school grad­u­ate.” (more…)

Let’s face it: College stu­dents drink. And we could all admit, if we really wanted to be hon­est, col­lege stu­dents drink too much.

We’ve all heard the speeches, the “don’t do it” lec­tures. We know col­lege stu­dents aren’t just going to stop drink­ing. But I wanted to get the word out to those who decide to make drink­ing part of their col­lege expe­ri­ence. I talked to one of my nurs­ing pro­fes­sors from last semes­ter and Nursing Laboratory Coordinator Pamela Smyth. I’ve always thought Smyth is one of the most down-to-earth, approach­able teach­ers I’ve had in my pro­gram, and she really cares about her stu­dents. Because of this, stu­dents often talk to her about their week­end plans or what they did the week­end before, full of drunken details. (more…)

Fifty Ferris State University stu­dents were sur­veyed about the things they love about their school and things they…well, don’t love so much. Here’s what was found to be the top 10 likes and the top 10 dis­likes about Ferris.

Top 10 favorite things about Ferris

1. Small school/campus atmosphere

Students love the com­mu­nity atmos­phere of Ferris and the com­fort of a school that’s on the smaller side. (more…)

Emily Noffsinger, Ferris sopho­more in graphic design and this month’s Rankin Art Gallery Student Artist of the Month, is on a roll with artis­tic expres­sion, cre­at­ing orig­i­nal longboards.

Noffsinger began the process as a senior in high school, when an advanced place­ment class required her to turn in a con­cen­tra­tion, or 12 pieces of related art. Knowing Noffsinger would be pur­su­ing a degree in graphic design, her teacher sug­gested her stu­dent cre­ate a com­pany. Noffsinger would start by mak­ing a logo and then cre­ate the actual boards. (more…)